Photos: Chile’s Amazing National Parks

Across the length of Chile, stretching 2,650 miles (4,265 kilometers) from north to south, more than 40 national parks have been established in the past century, protecting many endangered species, wild landscapes, and natural wonders. Collected below are images of several of these parks, from Lauca National Park, in the altiplano of Chile’s far north, to the dramatic mountains of Torres del Paine National Park, in the southern Patagonia region.

A view of the Cuernos del Paine, a cluster of steep granite peaks in Chile's Torres del Paine National Park. #

Flowers bloom in the desert in Llanos de Challe National Park, near the Atacama desert, 600 kilometers north of Santiago, photographed after a wetter-than-normal year, on November 5, 2011. #

Alpacas graze along the shore of Chungara Lake, with Parinacota volcano visible in the background, in Lauca National Park, near Putre, in northern Chile. #

A pair of Andean flamingos fly above Chungara Lake. #

A young mountain viscacha snuggles up to a sleeping adult on a rock in Lauca National Park. #

A waterfall known as Cascada de Ventisquero Colgante, or Hanging Glacier Falls, drops down a cliff below the face of Ventisquero Colgante Glacier, in Ventisquero Colgante Queulat National Park. #

A path meanders through moss-covered trees in a temperate rainforest in Chile's Queulat National Park. #

Moais stand in Rapa Nui National Park on the slopes of Rano Raraku volcano, on Chile's Easter Island. #

A cloud of ash billows from Puyehue volcano, in Puyehue National Park, near Osorno, in southern Chile, on June 5, 2011. Puyehue volcano erupted for the first time in half a century on June 4, 2011, prompting thousands of evacuations. #

The Leones Glacier flows into a lake in Laguna San Rafael National Park, in southern Chile. #

People pilot a small boat through floating ice at the terminus of San Rafael Glacier, in Laguna San Rafael National Park, on March 30, 2015. #

A view of some of the Siete Tazas (Seven Cups)—a chain of seven natural pools and waterfalls along the Claro River, in Radal Siete Tazas National Park. #

A view of Llaima volcano and the branches of a monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana) in Conguillío National Park, Chile #

Monkey puzzle trees stand among other trees showing autumn colors along the Sierra Nevada trail in Conguillío National Park. #

A guanaco is silhouetted against the sky on a hillside in Torres del Paine National Park. #

A puma prowls through brush in Torres del Paine National Park. #

Water plunges down the Salto Grande Waterfall along Pehoe Lake, in Torres del Paine National Park. #

Antonio Lara, a researcher from the laboratory of the Faculty of Science and Climate of Austral University, looks at larch trees in Alerce Costero National Park, in Valdivia, Chile, on April 10, 2023. #

A close view of the "Alerce Milenario," in Alerce Costero National Park, seen on April 10, 2023. This giant alerce tree has survived for thousands of years. Scientists see in its trunk a valuable record of how life adapts to changes on the planet. The "Great Grandfather" tree, 28 meters tall and four meters in diameter, is in the process of being certified as the oldest tree on the planet at more than 5,000 years, older than the Methuselah pine of the United States, which was identified as the oldest in the world at 4,850 years. #

A view looking north along Santa Barbara beach, in Chile's Pumalín Douglas Tompkins National Park #